In the 1971 classic "American Pie," Don McLean wrote about "The Day the Music Died" — a.k.a. Feb. 3, 1959, when Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and "The Big Bopper" J.P. Richardson were famously killed in ...

Ninety-four years ago today, the prolific studio guitarist and producer who worked with a long list of legends was born in Oklahoma.

CLEAR LAKE — Tommy Allsup, Carl Bunch and Bob Hale can all remember where they were when they found out Buddy Holly, J.P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson and Ritchie Valens were killed in a plane crash on ...

Allsup was the Buddy Holly band member who was supposed to be on the plane with Holly and J.P. "the Big Bopper" Richardson the night they died after the Winter Dance Party concert at the Surf Ballroom ...

HOUSTON (AP) — Tommy Allsup, a guitarist best known for losing a coin toss that kept him off a plane that later crashed and killed rock 'n' roll stars Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and J.P. "Big Bopper" ...

During the 1968 European Soccer Championship semifinal, Italy and the Soviet Union played to a tie. The winner was determined by a coin toss. In 1959, Richie Vallens and Tommy Allsup tossed a coin to ...

Tommy Allsup lived nearly 58 additional years because he lost a coin flip. Allsup, a musician and producer who is in the Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame, died Wednesday. He was 85. The death was confirmed ...

Tommy Allsup’s first memory of that Midwest rock ’n’ roll tour 50 years ago was the temperature. “It was cold,” he recalled in a telephone interview from his home in Crowell, Texas. “Those old buses ...